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The support rate of Hezbollah has reached as high as 86.9 percent, more than 70 percent of residents in Lebanon support Hezbollah's assaults against Israel patrol forces, and 63.3 percent of the people consider it impossible for the Israeli army to defeat Hezbollah, according to an opinion poll conducted by Beirut Centere for Research and Information among various religious factions in Lebanon in late July. At the early stage of Israel-Lebanon conflict, however, many Lebanese, the Christians and Suni Muslims in particular, had reservations about the actions of Hezbollah.

The Arab countries, even those nations which held the dissenting attitude toward Hezbollah, have changed their attitude gradually. Atrocities committed by Israeli troops have drawn denunciations from the Arab countries unanimously, and mass protests and demonstrations in support of Hezbollah have erupted in Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Syria, Yemen, the Sudan and Pakistan.

The support rate of Hezbollah has been uplifted on an unprecedented scale. Media in many countries, nevertheless, noted that it is Israel itself that has the very "hand to raise" the prestige of Hezbollah.

The extreme reaction and indiscriminate use of violence by the Israeli side turn out to be the opposite of what it has desired instead of attaining their anticipated objectives. Israel has long aspired to see the No. 1559 resolution of the UN Security Council get implemented, under which Hezbollah militants are disarmed and the Lebanese government forces station in southern Lebanon. The National (Alwatan) Newspaper holds that most of the Lebanese, who has maintained neutrality, cannot but hold up the banner of Hezbollah when they feel their personal interests are infringed upon by Israel.

The extreme reaction has also landed Israel in a passive position of being reproached. Particularly in the case of Qana village tragedy occurred in southern Lebanon on July 30, in which 54 innocent people, including 37 children, were killed. Many countries and some international organizations, either Arab and Muslim countries or a number of Western nations, have issued statements and bulletins to slam Israeli atrocities. Even Germany, which had long been sympathetic toward Israel, expressed its "shock" on this tragedy.

At present, the domestic security situation in Israel, particularly in northern Israel, has not been turned to the better owing to its ever-intensifying military moves. Its armed forces, which numbers less than 10,000 soldiers, can now hardly do anything in the face of armed Hezbollah militants.

In disregard of the appeal of the international community for ceasefire, as worried by the people the world over, Israel has decided to further expand its ground military actions instead of implementing its July 31 commitment to a 48-hour suspension of airstrike. Reality will surely once again prove that Israel will pay more heavily for the more extreme reactions it has taken.

Editor: Yan